Choosing Citlali

When I was eight years old, my mum decided to sponsor a child through World Vision. Today I have to admit that, sadly, I don't remember much about that child: not the name, not the country, not even the gender. But what I still know is that I was happy when we first received a letter from the child and that I looked at the picture on a regular basis.

Only two years later, due to some changes in my mother's life, she had to drop the child again. I felt bad that we weren't able to continue the sponsorship, even though I can't say we had much of a relationship with the kid to begin with, (we didn't write letters back then), but could understand my mum's reasons as well.

On that day I decided that I wanted to sponsor a child on my own at some point.

At the age of ten I didn't have any idea how to do it. So years passed, I grew up, moved out, started my apprenticeship and the plan to sponsor a child faded into the background.

It wasn't until Teresa told me about Esperance at times and introduced me to Compassion when she had heard of it, that suddenly I found myself on the German Compassion website daily.

I took a closer look on my expenses and wasn't sure if I could really sponsor a child.  After all, back then I was pregnant and knew things could get a little tight once our child was been born. I talked to my husband and we discussed it over and over again. He could understand why I wanted to sponsor a child, but we agreed to wait until our baby was born to see how we would manage money wise and make a final decision then.

But I still couldn't stop checking on the kids.

And then I spotted Citlali. Her smile captured me in a heartbeat. Her colorful dress stood out to me.
I scanned through her information, even though I already knew she was the child I wanted to sponsor. Citlali was born in 2002 and lives with her family (both parents and two brothers) in Mexico. She helps her mother making the bed and running errands. Citlali loves to sing, ride her bike and play with dolls. And the information also said that she is suffering from asthma.

Reluctantly I closed the page.  After all, I had a deal with Chris. But whatever I did, I couldn't forget about her; I felt drawn to her in a way I hadn't experience before. I kept checking the website to see if she was still waiting for a sponsor and felt relieved whenever I saw she was still there.

A few days later I told my mother-in-law about Citlali, who in turn asked me to show her the picture on the website. I did and couldn't believe my ears; my mother-in-law offered me to chip in for half of the sponsorship, and right then and there I filled in the form. I just knew that this would be okay with Chris as well.

I couldn't be happier and was looking forward to get to know “my girl”. 

In the end, Chris and I had no problem affording the sponsorship alone. God surely provides! And today my parents-in-law have their own Compassion child, but that's another story!